Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees EXPLAINED

Part 1・Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura (1748)

Apr 02 (Kabuki In-Depth) - We begin our exploration of the epic jidaimono play Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura ("Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees"), written in 1747 for the bunraku puppet theatre by the playwrights Takeda Izumo II, Miyoshi Shōraku and Namiki Senryū I, the same team that produced Kanadehon Chūshingura and Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami, the other two classical masterpieces of the kabuki repertoire.

In this first video, we cover the Torii Mae (literally, "in front of the torii", meaning the torii entrance to the Fushimi Inari shrine near Kyoto). This is by far the most frequent start for full productions of the play, although it can be sometimes skipped or staged independently. The act I is almost never seen in kabuki, but it is more common in bunraku.

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